* Why are people so afraid of Casper? He doesn't look the least bit threatening. He looks like a cross between a teddy bear and a lightbulb.** Because he's a ghost. Besides, [[DontExplainTheJoke that's the joke]], isn't it?** If I saw a little dead kid it would freak me out no matter how cute he was.** It's an interesting conundrum, isn't it? The Ghostly Trio and Spooky look far scarier in most of their appearances, but have to work to frighten people; yet Casper, who looks totally non-threatening, can freak the norms just by smiling and saying "hi." There's clearly something else going on that we the audience can't sense.** It's kind of fun to think about. Maybe it's because [[UncannyValley he looks the least human]] or something. Maybe it's his featureless face. Or maybe he just carries a really freaky aura about him. Maybe it's even the fact that he doesn't want to be scary, that he tries to go against his natural desire, and that [[RealityIsUnrealistic makes him seem so off]] that people are more freaked out.** One cartoon had a humorous inversion of this: The Ghostly Trio are frustrated in that they ''can't'' scare anyone anymore, as the local animals have grown used to ghosts thanks to Casper. They try to rectify this by forcing Casper to be mean, with disastrous results. ** Even more interesting, babies and small children, who are normally quite easy to scare, are very rarely shown to be afraid of Casper, only adults and (usually older) teens. And even adults can overcome their fear fairly easily, given cause.*** That's intentional. Adults have been taught that ghosts are scary and react accordingly. ChildrenAreInnocent and don't. --->[[ExpositoryThemeTune "Grown-ups don't understand]]--->[[ExpositoryThemeTune a friendly ghost in the most]]--->[[ExpositoryThemeTune but the kids all know and they love him so,]]--->[[ExpositoryThemeTune Casper the Friendly Ghost!]]"** People don't seem to be scared of him in Casper and the Angels.** It's difficult to judge how scary he is in-universe among other cartoon characters, it's like judging how attractive Minnie Mouse is. As far as we know for other cartoons he looks like the kid from Film/TheGrudge. Which once you think about it, maybe that kid just wants to be friendly too. * The other ghosts want Casper to scare people, but he doesn't want to scare nice people. Why don't they just compromise and let him scare only the bad guys?* Unlike the movie adaptation, Casper doesn't really seem to have a backstory concerning when he was alive. It just seems like he has been a ghost since "birth".** Originally, he was a dead child; however, the very idea of this made people {{Squick}}, so when Harvey acquired the rights to the character, they changed it; the ghosts were retconned into being magical creatures rather than the spirits of dead people. Harvey even went on record saying that Casper is a ghost simply because he was born to a husband-and-wife ghost couple. [[VoodooShark ...Wait, WHAT?!]]*** In other words, a phantom pregnancy?*** If he has ghost parents, then where are they?*** Casper actually does have parents in early shorts, such as "Casper's Birthday" and "Hide and Shriek." Surprisingly, it is implied that they raised him to be good.* Casper's "family"... just how many relatives does he have? He has the Ghostly Trio as uncles and Hairy Scarey reoccurs in various animated series, but is he related to any of them?** Well, somewhere above this one it says that Casper has parents, so maybe Hairy's a relation on whichever side of the family that the Ghostly Trio isn't on.*** Or not. Hairy could be an HonoraryUncle of Casper's.*** Well, there's also [[LukeIAmYourFather the other option for how Hairy's related to Casper...]] but that seems incredibly unlikely and would be [[UnfortunateImplications a very uncomfortable thought]] given how many times Hairy has openly admitted to not liking how unthreatening Casper is.*** Casper also has a cousin named Spooky who's also got a different-colored nose (albeit Spooky's is black while Hairy's is red) and wears some clothing (Hairy and his bow-tie and Spooky with his hat), so maybe he's Spooky's dad? It's just as unlikely as him being Casper's dad, but then again the Ghostly Trio doesn't look like they'd be related to Casper or Spooky either.** I don't think Casper's related to Hairy Scarey. Hairy comes off more as a goofy mentor for Casper with Casper being his sort of MoralityPet. The first episode of ''Casper and the Angels'' mentioned that Casper was assigned to his job with Minnie and Maxie, possibly with Hairy as his teacher.

[[Film/{{Casper}} The Live-Action film]]* What happens to the corpses of the dead? Dr Harvey will have a lot of explaining to do if his body is ever found in that trench...** Regarding dead people, Carrigan dropped off a cliff, which removes difficulties with corpses. As for Dr Harvey, maybe the Ghostly Trio dealt with the corpse before they headed back. Apparently the Lazarus machine can give you a new body, it seems.* If ghosts are dead people with unfinished business, then why isn't Casper's father a ghost? He never got around to bringing Casper back to life.** One must assume his business was the creation of the Lazarus Machine, which satisfied him enough to pass on.** I bet Casper's father is more of a douche than goody-two-shoes Casper gives him credit for.** I just thought he was alive and in an asylum.** It could be that long before his death he was able to make peace with the idea of his son's death and thus had no unfinished business after all. Which would explain why the machine was never used on Casper.----